So sorry about the wait but I wanted to finish The Scourging of the Swamp first (in my big Amphibia fanfic "You're About Seven Years Too Early", check it out!) and then I got distracted by college stuff.

"That day started with me, Eda, and King at the market selling human trash," Luz began. "Actually, we weren't selling anything. Everyone was going to the convention center so business was dead. I passed the time reading King some Azura, ironically enough the part where she challenges Hecate to a Witch's Duel (you'll see why that's ironic later), but he was more interested in the little flipbook I drew in the corners of the pages."

Azura got up and grabbed one of her namesake books. "You mean this?" She flipped the pages, showing an animation of the Good Witch and an opponent fighting like swords with their staves.

"Yep, that's it," said Luz proudly. "King said he was once called the 'King of Artists', but even he knew he was just making that up. Anyway, Eda complained that all the flowery language I read was driving away all her customers. I had to point out to her that there weren't any customers anywhere."

"Why didn't you say something before?" asked Azura.

Luz shrugged. "I dunno. Reading to King was more important, I guess. So, Gus and Willow showed up all excited with a flier for the Covention, where student witches could learn all about the different covens. I figured it was kinda like a job fair and immediately wanted to go." She sighed. "How naive we all were…"

Azura, frightened, leaned into Luz for another hug, which was quickly given.

All of Azura's friends shivered at the mention of covens, just as she did the previous day. Naturally, covens and the Draining Spell were one of the greatest horror stories of all time for their generation.

Melody started holding onto Julie even tighter than before. Julie couldn't even bring herself to complain about it. She hugged Melody back because the younger girl needed comfort too.

"Yeah, and the topic is gonna come up again and again," said Azura glumly. "Hooray…"

"What irony…" Syl muttered. "I love stories that deal with dark topics, and Luz Noceda is my favorite person ever. But when those two things are combined…"

"You don't know whether to be happy or sad," said Peony.

"Exactly!" said Syl.

"Those sigils really hurt a whole lot of people," said Luz. "Good thing Grandpa Alador and Viney and all those wonderful people discovered a way to remove them. Now everyone is free!" She raised her fist in the air triumphantly while Azura clapped a little. "Well, except for everyone sent to jail after the Day of Unity. There was really no point healing them."

"That seems kinda unfair," said Azura.

"Eh, I guess it was but it made the punishment more noteworthy. So anyway, Eda said I couldn't go but I was determined. I gave the Azura book to King and had him read the floweriest part out loud." Luz chuckled a little. "Eda got so annoyed she agreed we could go to the Covention just so King would stop."

"Read flowery language around her to make her give in to an argument— should we add that to the Eda list?" asked Julie.

"Eh, probably not," said Hal. "She probably wouldn't be bothered by that stuff now. It'll just remind her of Luz.

"Yeah… unless we write it ourselves to ensure it's something she hasn't heard before!" exclaimed Syl. "Write that down!"

Julie loosened her hold on Melody so she can add to the list. "Yes, this is perfect."

"Won't she catch on eventually?" Luna pointed out.

"Probably, but until she does we're gonna milk it as much as possible," said Peony.

"When we got there, Eda reminded me that she's still wanted by the EC for not joining a coven so she has to keep a low profile. I, however, had no problems doing that and in fact caused a major public event that Eda ended up getting involved in anyway."

Azura nodded. "Of course."

"I was instantly mesmerized when I saw all the stands inside," said Luz. "It's just like when we went to Comic Con last year but people were doing fancy spells. Obviously covens are a cruel and corrupt institution, but I won't lie that the Covention made them look cool at an initial glance. Willow and Gus were showing me around, explaining what the different booths were, and we stopped by the Construction Coven."

"Construction magic is fun!" said Azura.

"Yeah, it's earthbending! And strength-building patches! What's not to love?" Luz paused for a moment. "Well, I guess when someone puts one of those patches on you without your knowledge."

Yet again, Stringbean hissed to chastise Luz for jumping ahead.

"Dang it!"

"Pop and Mom are kinda miffed I'm not into construction magic," said Hal. "But building stuff just isn't my style. Unless it's building Human Realm-Demon Realm relations!"

"Yeah it's not really my style either," said Lobo.

"Same here," said Luna.

"And I mostly use it in conjunction with plant magic, like manipulating the soil when planting stuff," said Peony. "I hardly ever do construction stuff by itself."

"Well I still enjoy it," said Dratina.

"But yeah, Mason the Construction Coven Head gave good ol' Tinella Nosa one of the power patches and she got pretty power hungry. Started throwing things and people all around. I probably would've watched that forever if Gus didn't draw my attention to the Illusion Coven stand."

"Yay! Illusions!" Azura draws a spell circle and creates a little illusion of a smiley face.

"They are fun," said Luz. "Naturally after a few minutes I thought covens were the greatest thing ever, and asked why Eda didn't join one. She immediately directed my attention to one kid officially getting his coven sigil, and explained how he was permanently locked off from all other types of magic. And yeah, once she pointed that out I felt that maybe covens were kinda sus, but I still wanted to form my own opinion."

"What is 'sus'?"

"Suspicious."

"Oh."

"Yeah…" Luz trickled off into silence for a few seconds before continuing. "Interestingly, I'm pretty sure that kid I saw getting his sigil was the first person who had it removed."

"Oh, you mean Vander Creal?" asked Azura. "He was mentioned in school!"

"Yeah, him! Anyway, Eda did a really cool water and fire spell, saying she's so darn powerful because she never joined a coven. She walked away, and I followed her with Willow and Gus, but King got whisked away by people offering free swag. I don't blame him— I love being handed free stuff. Anyway, we went to the big arena where the Emperor's Coven was doing a big event. Gus wanted to get his forehead signed."

"Did he?" asked Azura.

Luz smirked. "You bet he did."

"Ooooooooh, I should ask Luz to sign my forehead!" exclaimed Syl.

"Isn't it hard to wash ink out of fur?" asked Dratina. "That signature would be there forever."

"What makes you think that isn't my plan?"

"So Principal Bump came out and gave this speech about the height of magical achievement, and your uncle Matt was all like 'Is it this?' and did some spell that enlarged his head. Not sure if he meant that seriously or not but Bump seemed to take that personally, like he failed as an educator."

Luna chuckled. "Maybe if Man-Tholomule did that spell more often and smashed things with his head, you'd be into construction more, Hal,"

"Nah, that would've probably put me off even more," said Hal. "Also, I feel second-hand embarrassment from that nickname."

"Oh, but he was so proud of his little mustache! That's what Abuela says, and if she thinks a name is cute then it is."

"But really, the height of magical achievement (Luz made sure to emphasize her air quotes) was joining the Emperor's Coven, only the greatest can join their ranks and use all forms of magic, some of us in the audience may have what it takes, et cetera."

"I thought Principal Bump was against the coven system," said Azura, puzzled.

"He was, but when the EC asks you to make a speech, you don't turn them down."

"Oh…"

Luz sighed. "Yeah, it was a rough world back then. But Bump didn't speak for too long— he quickly handed the mic over to Aunt Lilith and the whole crowd went crazy."

"Cool Aunt Lilith!"

"No, she wasn't Cool Aunt Lilith yet," said Luz. "If you thought your Mom's old attitude was unusual, then Lilith's was completely alien. She was all haughty and condescending and had straight dyed hair."

"Blegh…" Azura couldn't help but cringe at the thought.

"Yeah, it's really weird in hindsight," said Luz. "Anyway, I could tell that Eda had some sort of history with her but I didn't know they were sisters until later that day. Eda instantly wanted out of that panel and left. I followed her but I was reading from some magazine I found so I wasn't really looking where I was going and I bumped right into your Mom. I tried apologizing for the whole abomination thing, but she wasn't hearing any of it and said I shouldn't be there at an event for witches."

"And this is right around when Mom came home," said Azura.

"That's gotta be awkward," said Julie. "Aunt Am's expecting everything to be normal and walks in on her wife sharing her past cringe moments."

"It could've been worse."

Everyone at the table turned around at the unexpected voice: it was Amity Noceda (née Blight)!

After a few years assisting her father with various technical processes, Amity found her true calling as a teacher/school librarian. The later job really wasn't too different from what she used to do at Malphas' library.

"Mom!" Azura jumped out of her seat to give Amity a big hug. "I thought you had a class right now!"

"I let them go a little early." Amity gave Azura a little kiss. "Skara figured you kids were up to something, so here I am."

"You really tried to have Aunt Luz dissected?" asked Luna.

"Uhhhhh…" Amity's face quickly shifted to tomato mode. I mean… technically it wasn't my idea… but yeah I guess I did."

"Mrs. Noceda, what's a wizard?" asked Melody. "We wanna know!"

The blush faded from Amity's face. "Wizards are a Human Realm concept of spellcasters."

"No, like a wizard on the Boiling Isles," said Azura. "Mami mentioned them in her story yesterday."

Amity furrowed her brow. She vaguely recalled Luz talking about her encounter with Adegast a while back but didn't really know what to make of it. "I'll have to look deeper into this."

"King came over and already he had a huge collection of swag, including a cupcake from the Baker's Coven."

"What kind of cupcake?" asked Azura.

(Luz and Azura were so invested in the story that they didn't hear the front door open.)

"I'm not sure exactly," said Luz, "but it had cream frosting and sprinkles and a cherry on top. Anyway, he was running too fast so he tripped and dropped it. And you wanna know what your Mom did? She smushed his cupcake!"

Azura gasped dramatically. "NO!"

"Yes. Flattened beyond repair beneath her boot and she said it was an 'accident.'"

"Whoa, Mom really was a meanie."

"A meanie?" said a sarcastic voice. "Oh no, how will I ever recover from this?"

Luz and Azura turned around and smiled.

"Hermosa!" Luz exclaimed. "I didn't hear you come in!"

"That's not a surprise." Amity leaned in and pecked Luz on the lips. "You were so invested in your story."

"Mami started from when she first came here!" said Azura. "Are you mad she started without you? 'Cause I said you would be."

"No, I'm not mad. Though I'm pretty sure your Mami was thinking of a past crush and that did cause a tiny bit of anger to flare up."

Luz gave Azura an "I told you so" expression. "Just the one I stabbed through his chiseled pecs. And that was before I met you anyway."

"Good, good." Amity stood there awkwardly for a few seconds. "So, Azura, sweetie, I know you've heard some… unsavory things about me… and you deserve to know them, of course…" She unconsciously grabbed the hem of her shirt. "And I'd be fine if you don't—"

Azura jumped over to Amity and gave her a big hug. "I'll never stop loving you, Mom."

Amity happily reciprocated the hug. "Thank you."

"But why'd you smush Uncle King's cupcake? He didn't do anything to you."

Anity sighed. "You're right, he didn't. But he was close to Luz and an easy target to take my frustrations out on. Once I became a good person I apologized immensely. Plus I baked him a whole batch of cupcakes to make up for it."

Azura smiled. "That's good."

"Cariño, show Mom what you found!"

"Oh yeah!" Azura ran over to the table and drew her glyph combo again, dazzling Amity with her laser light show spell. "I found this all by myself!"

"Oh sweetie, I'm so proud of you," said Amity. "And it looks like there's a new glyph prodigy in the family."

"Hey, I'm happy to relinquish that title for our little gremlin," said Luz. "Now come and sit down so we can continue the story together."

Amity and Azura quickly complied.

"I was willing to accept getting picked on, but bullying the King of Demons was a step too far. I challenged your Mom to a Witch's Duel! Duels turned out to be a bigger deal than I thought."

"No one can really blame you for that, batata," said Amity. "But the duel was declared and the conditions were set: if Luz wins then I'd apologize to King and admit humans can be witches. If I win, then she'd admit humans can't be witches and stop her magic training forever. I sealed the deal with an Everlasting Oath, which was probably one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.

"Yeah," said Luz. "Good thing that oath was called off 'cause we'd all be dead right now."

"Azura, I want you to promise you'll never make an Everlasting Oath," said Amity in a serious tone."I only did it because that's what she did to seal deals: creating a binding that violates a person's free will. So please promise."

"I promise," said Azura. "You can count on me, Mom."

"And that goes for the rest of you kids, too," Amity stressed. "Promise you'll never, EVER make that oath. Because if you do I'll find out, none of us want to find out what I'll do."

"We promise," said the kids simultaneously, slightly scared.

"I started freaking out 'cause I realized there's no way I'd actually win a duel with just balls of light and weak nerd punches," said Luz, "so I ran to Eda begging for help. She and Lilith were arguing about who was a better teacher and I think they were gonna have us duel anyway."

"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," said Amity.

"I probably would've tried to get out of that situation if I wasn't the one who called for the duel in the first place," said Luz. "Anyway, Eda's wanted posters were temporarily lifted and we left to get prepared for the duel. Once Eda found out about the oath, she declared she wouldn't let me lose and had an idea. I didn't know what it was yet, but it turned out to be booby-trapping the arena. She ensured no one in the stands would notice, but you definitely did."

"Yeah, it was pretty obvious up close," said Amity. "Anyway, when the duel began I summoned an animation. It was much bigger than usual but I didn't really think about it at the moment."

"And once I saw that giant abomination, my fight-or-flight instincts went straight to flight. But your mom just tossed the abomination over to me and it landed on one of Eda's traps." Luz paused to draw a fire glyph and activated it. "It's just as if one of these went off underneath it."

"Did it smell bad?" asked Hal. "Professor Darner says burning abominations smell like an old corpse."

"It didn't smell," said Amity. "That kind of burning happens with chemicals or potions, not fire."

"And immediately afterward it stepped on another one, firing it and me into the air," said Amity.

"No… you got hurt…" said Azura.

"Eh, not really," Amity admitted. "I know how to do a superhero landing, as your Mami likes to call them."

"'Cause that's what they are!" exclaimed Luz. "But anyway, I just wanted the duel to end and begged Amity not to step on one of the booby-trap mounds."

"Too bad I just thought she was taunting," said Amity. "I nearly did get seriously hurt, but luckily King unintentionally ended the duel."

"Huh?" Azura didn't understand.

"Yeah, he got so much merchandise over the day that he just couldn't hold it all," said Luz. "He tripped and fell down the stands and landed on the spike mound, but he had so many shirts on that the spikes didn't even touch him. He was kinda mad that the shirts were ripped though."

"I know that feeling," said Luna. "Everyone's all like: 'why are you complaining anyway, you can just shapeshift clothes?' Well that makes the real shirts I have more special!"

"Can't relate but I feel for you, cuz," said Lobo.

"He also dropped some of his merch on the way down," said Skara, butting into the conversation. "I got a free hat!"

"Mom, how long were you listening to this?" asked Dratina.

"Ever since your sister asked about wizards," Skara replied.

"Was it a cool hat?" asked Peony.

Skara shrugged. "It was plain green and nothing else, but there are definitely way worse hats, so… maybe. It's nothing like my favorite hat, though. That thing's awesome."

"But it was clear I was cheating," said Luz. "I tried to say it wasn't my idea and I didn't support it but it didn't work."

"Lilith came over to gloat, so I figured that was my cue to just leave," Amity continued. "But Eda stopped me because she noticed something on the back of my neck: a Construction Coven patch. That's why the abomination was so big." She smirked. "Not that I'd ever need something like that now."

She stood up and seamlessly transformed herself into a giant abomination. "No patch, all skill."

"I think you forgot to say beauty…" said Luz with a massive blush.

Amity smiled. "As if my beauty can ever compare to yours."

"Mrow!" Ghost meowed loudly to get her owner's attention.

"Oh, right." Amity quickly went back to normal. "We are getting sidetracked." She sat down and awkwardly cleared her throat. "Lilith only cheated because she knew Eda would have to heat, but I felt so humiliated, and Luz could tell. I saw her trying to approach me and I just ran out of there."

Now it was Amity's turn to get a comfort hug from Azura. "You needed this back then so I'm giving it to you now."

"Aww, thank you," said Amity. "I was mad at Lilith for a while because of that, but I'm glad we rekindled our mentor-student bond. Back then, neither of us were doing what we really wanted to do, so it was refreshing to bond with her over history instead of Emperor's Coven training."

"And she inspired you to teach history here, right?" asked Syl.

Amity nodded. "That's right."

"Anyway, I ran after Amity and found her sulking by the bathrooms," said Luz. "I apologized for embarrassing her but she got more upset."

Amity sighed. "I went on a little rant about how Luz thinks becoming a witch is so easy and she has no idea how hard it was to work toward the top. I just wanted her to admit she wasn't a witch."

"I said that I wasn't a witch, but I was training to be one," said Luz. "I got down on the ground and drew a light glyph."

"Needless to say I was pretty stunned," said Amity. "It was the most basic spell, but I had no idea glyphs even existed at all. We both lost the duel and she proved she could do magic, so I did the only right thing: calling off the oath. Not having a bile sac clearly wasn't stopping her from learning magic, so who was I to stand in the way of that?"

"She walked away, and soon after I found King again," said Luz. "He may have lost his shirts, but he still had tote bags! He hopped in and I carried him home."

"I wanna carry a little guy in a tote bag!" exclaimed Azura.

"Don't we all," said Luz with a smile. "So Eda caught up with us after she and Lilith got in a big fight. I was bummed thinking I'd never be a true witch, but Eda was all like: 'What even is a true witch?' By the Covention's standards, she's not a 'true witch' and that never stopped her. And that's the moral of the story: no one gets to tell you who you're supposed to be."

"And that's where we stopped yesterday," said Azura, turning to face her Mom. "Can everyone come over to hear the rest of the story? Pleeeeeeeeease?"

"And other adults can be there to share their perspectives!" said Peony.

"Let me into your house again!" Syl shouted.

Amity hummed. "Well… it might be a slow process since we'll have to coordinate schedules with your parents and all, but sure! Luz would love to share her story with more people.

"Thanks mom, you're the best!" said Azura.

"You're welcome, sweetie. Though I'm still not sure how you managed to condense two hours of storytelling into a 30-minute lunch period."

Azura shrugged. "I guess it's another one of my talents."

And just then, the bell rang signaling lunch was over. Everybody said goodbye and went their separate ways for now.

And while Azura relayed Luz's journey to her friends, she deliberately didn't mention what happened immediately afterward…

"And, uh, I guess that's it for now," said Luz. "We can continue this later, 'cause if we try to do it in one sitting we'll be stuck here for a long time."

"And now that it's time for something else…" Amity pulled Luz closer to her. "Somebody owes me some kisses."

"Oh, I'm happy to provide."

Ms. and Mrs. Noceda kissed passionately, as they tended to do.

Azura immediately put her hands over her eyes and ran upstairs. "NO! EEW! DON'T DO THAT IN FRONT OF ME!"

Thanks to RibKoboldScout and thenotso_ultiwrit for suggestions that made it into this chapter!

Amity working at Hexside was freely taken from that one Moringmark comic, and Skara's favorite hat is one of those soda drinking ones.